No Law, No Peace
The single most catastrophic happening of 1967 was NOTthe war itself and the creation of Greater Israel. At America’s insistence, and with the eventual complicity of the Soviet Union, it (the single most catastrophic happening) was THE REFUSAL OF THE SECURITY COUNCIL OF THE UNITED NATIONS TO CONDEMN ISRAEL AS THE AGGRESSOR.If it had done so, the history of the region and the world might well have taken a very different course. There might well have been a negotiated end to the Arab-Israeli conflict and a comprehensive peace within two or three years. If you think that’s a far-fetched notion of what could have been – read my book, which includes a chapter headed Goodbye t
o the Security Council’s Integrity.
Question: Why, really, was it so important from the Zionist state’s point of view that it NOT be branded the aggressor when actually it WAS? The full answer is in my book, the short version of it comes down to this.
Aggressors are not allowed to keep the territory they take in war, they have to withdraw from it UNCONDITIONALLY. This is the requirement of international law and, also, a fundamental principle which the UN is committed to uphold. Eisenhower was the first and last American president to uphold it with regard to Israel when he read the riot act after it had colluded with Britain and France in 1956 to invade Eygpt. That is on the one hand.
On the other hand is the generally accepted view that when a state is attacked, is the victim of aggression, and then goes to war in genuine self-defence and ends up occupying some (or even all) of the aggressor’s territory, the occupier has the right, in negotiations, to attach conditions to its withdrawal.
In summary it can be said that although Security Council Resolution 242 of 23 November 1967 did pay lip-service to “the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by war”, it effectively put Zionism in the diplomatic driving seat. By not condemning Israel as the aggressor and thereby giving Israel the scope to attach conditions to its withdrawal, Resolution 242 effectively gave Israel’s leaders and the Zionist lobby in America A VETO OVER ANY PEACE PROCESS.
In 1956, when he insisted that Israel withdraw from the Sinai without conditions, President Eisenhower said that if a nation which attacked and occupied foreign territory was allowed to impose conditions on its withdrawal, “this would be tantamount to turning back the clock of international order.”That’s what happened in 1967. President Johnson, President Johnson, on the advice of those including the Zionists in their ranks who saw Nasser and the Arab nationalism he represented as a huge potential threat to U.S. interests in the region and therefore encouraged Israel to go to war, turned back the clock of international order. (In reality what Nasser wanted most of all was friendship and even partnership with America on an equal footing with Israel – but that’s another story). The turning back of the clock effectively created TWO SETS OF RULES FOR THE BEHAVIOUR OF NATIONS- one set for all the nations of the world excluding only Israel, which were expected to behave in accordance with international law and their obligations of members of the United Nations; and one set for Israel, which was not expected to behave, and would not be required to behave, in accordance with international law and its obligations as a member of the United Nations. THAT DOUBLE-STANDARD IS THE MOTHER AND FATHER OF ARAB AND ALL OTHER MUSLIM HURT, HUMILIATION AND ANGER.
And that’s where we still are today, with two sets of rules for the behaviour of nations. But it’s no longer one set of rules for the Zionist state of Israel only. Under President George “Dubya” Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair, America and Britain became associate members of Israel’s Club of One and demonstrated complete contempt for international law. They turned back the clock on it.
Still on the subject of international law, I’d also like to say a few words about Israel’s right (or not) to exist.
According to first and still existing draft of Judeo-Christian history, Israel was given its birth certificate and thus legitimacy by the UN Partition Resolution of 29 November 1947. This , too, is nonsense.
In the first place the UN without the consent of the majority of the people of Palestine did not have the right to decide to partition Palestine or assign any part of its territory to a minority of alien immigrants in order for them to establish a state of their own. (I’ll be returning to the subject of “alien” immigrants).
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